Tuesday, 24 March 2015

Open Letter: Reversing Policy Of Political Exclusion & Disenfranchisement Of 12.4 Million Ethnic Voters In Nigeria’s 2015 General Polls

Ref:
INTERSOC/SE/03/05/015/FGN/ABJ/FRN

The Federal Executive Council of
Nigeria

Thro

Senator Anyim Pius Anyim

Secretary to the Government of the
Federation

Office of the SGF, the Shehu Shagari
Secretariat Complex

Three Arms Zones, FCT, Abuja,
Nigeria

Dear FEC,

Open Letter: Reversing Policy
Of Political Exclusion & Disenfranchisement Of 12.4 Million Ethnic Voters
In Nigeria’s 2015 General Polls

On 10th February 2015,
the leadership of International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule
of Law (Intersociety) wrote the offices of the Chairman of Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Secretary to the Government of the
Federation, the Chief of Defense Staff and the DG of SSS. The referenced letter
was titled: Healing The Wounds Of Aborted Scientific Rigging Of 2015
General Polls In Nigeria: What Your Respected Authorities Must Do. The
letter follows shift in the dates of the 2015 general polls from 14th
and 28th February to 28th March and 11th April
2015 owing to security concerns in the Northeast and INEC’s unpreparedness
particularly as it concerns PVC distribution.

The INEC and the CDS replied us on
17th and 25th February 2015 respectively and we have
since publicly responded to relevant issues raised in the letter. On 20th
March 2015, we wrote the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the
IGP, the CDS, the COAS and the DG of SSS. The letter was titled:
Conditions For Secured & Rogue Free Polls In Nigeria: What Must Be Done.
On 21st March 2015, we issued a detailed public statement, titled: Dangers
Of Political Exclusion: Exposing INEC’s Bias Against Ethnic Minorities In
Nigeria. The overall aim of the letters and public statements of ours
under referenced is geared at ensuring effective poll security and
enfranchisement through issuance of PVC, of every registered Nigerian voter
particularly those of vulnerable and minority origins and classes.

Dangers of Political Exclusion &
Disenfranchisement of Minority Populations:

It is both scholarly and popularly
established that the fundamental causes of civil wars and violence around the
world particularly in Africa are political exclusion and systematic
undermining of socio-ethnic identities particularly of minority
populations. The 2015 general elections’ handling styles informally
adopted by the Independent National Electoral Commission are clearly laid on
the foregoing.

The fundamental feature of a plural
society is its ability to protect at all times the rights of the minority
populations particularly their inalienable rights to participate, vote or be
voted for in national elections. To ensure this, democratically advanced
countries with plural settings have gone extra miles in adopting proportional
representations and other favorable pluralistic measures in their
national elections to lay to bare all encompassing democratic practices.
Countries like Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium and even South Africa are typical
examples. In the United States, the two dominant national policies in the country
as of date are issues of voting and immigration rights. At a
point in the contemporary history of the USA, it became evident that a
favorable national policy must be devised to accommodate and legalize the
rights of approximately eleven million unlawful immigrants in the country as at
2013.

In the country under reference, a
Hispanic (Mexican American) or Chinese American or African American is fully
empowered by law and morality to vote or be voted for in municipal, State,
legislative or presidential polls. As a matter of fact, the country’s current
President has a trio of Kenyan, Indonesian and American descent. He earned his
electoral value and popularity leading to his triumphant presidential emergence
in 2008 as a celebrated minority voters’ rights advocate.

It has always been calamitous in the
histories of countries that stuck to their guns on majority superiority at
all times electoral governing styles. From Burundi to Rwanda; Africa’s Great
Lakes region to Sierra Leone and Liberia; the list is too long to be exhausted.
The most typical example is Ivory Coast; the former Paris of Africa.
Most of the 30 ongoing civil wars and insurrections (intra State conflicts) in
Africa are waged following fierce protests against political exclusion
and ethnic cleansing of the minority populations, considered as
antithetical to their social existence and values. Dangers and consequences of political
exclusion targeted at the minority populations are tangibly and
intangibly catastrophic and age long. Civil wars premised on economic/resource
and political disagreements can easily be overcome; but certainly not
those triggered off by ethnic and religious suppression. In other words, value
oriented civil wars are age long and unquenchable; except where the
political actors act swiftly and arrest same at early warning levels.

Our Latest Findings:

It is now officially confirmed
following the closure of the country-wide PVC distribution by INEC on Sunday,
22nd March 2015 that 12.4 million registered voters, most of them of
Igbo indigenes residing in Lagos and the North as well as ethnic minorities of
northern origins and residency, have been disenfranchised and denied their
voting rights by the Independent National Electoral Commission by way of non
issuance of their PVCs and adamant refusal by the Commission to allow them vote
with their TVCs. It is also incontrovertibly factual that most of the
uncollected PVCs in the Northeast, the Northwest, Niger and Plateau States in
the North-central as well as Lagos State are PVCs belonging to registered
voters of the reference ethnic backgrounds.

Conversely, over 98% of registered
voters of majority, Islamic and sedentary populations have
received their PVCs as at 21st March 2015. In sedentary
population PVCs distribution, for instance, we mean host Yoruba voters
at home in the Southwest particularly in Lagos State, host Hausa-Fulani Muslim
voters at home in the Northwest and the Northeast and parts of the
North-central particularly in Kano, Kaduna, Jigawa, Borno, Sokoto, Kebbi,
Zamfrara, Bauchi, Yobe, Bauchi, Niger and Plateau States. Most of the guest
and minority populations in the area are denied PVCs. In Kaduna
State, most of those who did not get their PVCs are minority Christians of the
Southern Kaduna and guest Igbo population; likewise in Kano State particularly
in Sabon Gari and Nasarawa LGAs or areas. In Plateau State, most of the
non-recipients of the PVCs are guest Igbo registered voters and Plateau
Christian indigenes.

In Borno, Taraba and Adamawa States
in the Northeast with sizable Igbo and Christian populations, the story is not
different. Instead, the Commission said it has made adequate arrangements for
Muslim IDPs of Borno and Yobe States to vote in unlawful voting centers the
Commission created for them. The Commission said it has no resources and
provisions to allow their Christian counterparts outside the area to vote. In
Lagos State, out of 2,022, 973 registered voters that were not given PVCs by
INEC as at the end of the PVC distribution exercise; 70% or more are Igbo and
other guest residents. In all these, the PVCs of the referenced citizens were
deliberately misplaced or mis-located/mis-distributed, or impersonated or
officially hoarded or cleansed.

Further, our findings from the
pattern of PVCs collections in the 36 States and the FCT as well as the
country’s six geopolitical zones as at 21st March 2015 showed that
there have been no PVCs collections particularly in most States of the
Northwest zone since February 26, 2015. For instance, in Kano and figures
remain 3, 174, 519 out of total registered voters of 3, 407, 222 for Kaduna
State and 4, 112, 039 out of total registered voters of 4, 975, 701 for Kano
State respectively. Same thing applies to Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara
States.

In the Northeast zone, similar
situation applies except in Bauchi State where there was alarming PVC
collection allocation of 188, 701 in ten days (7th to17th
March 2015). In all these, it simply shows that all Muslim populations said to
have been registered to vote including millions of under-age voters have all
been allocated PVCs leaving Igbo and minority Christians in the referenced
areas without PVCs. While the former are kingly issued with PVCs, the latter
are tortuously dribbled and denied same by INEC.

Disenfranchisement Of 12.4M Voting
Citizens: Our careful analysis of INEC’s last
update of 21st March 2015 on PVC distribution across the country
clearly shows that whopping 12. 402, 221 registered voters dominated by
Christians, Igbo and ethnic minorities `have been disenfranchised by the
Commission and denied participation in the referenced crucial polls
particularly the presidential, owing to the inability of the Commission to
issue them PVCs. With this alarming number of registered voters excluded and disenfranchised
from voting by INEC, it is likely correct to hold that the Commission’s
perceived desperation to return power to the core North is coming to fruition.
Like we earlier said, the 2015 Presidential Election is long rigged
demographically and kept in coolers waiting for its legitimatization date
called “28th March 2015”; except God divinely says otherwise or an
effective reversal dying minute intervention by your respected FEC.

For instance, in our careful
analysis of the Commission’s PVCs distribution of 21st March 2015,
nothing has changed in terms of leveling up the gross imbalance and
lopsidedness inherent in the PVC distribution by way of issuing it to every
registered voter irrespective of his or her tribe, sex and religion or
geopolitical area. The Commission said it distributed at as the date under
reference total PVCs of 56, 431, 255, out of the total registered voters of 68,
833, 476; leaving 12, 402, 255 registered voters dominated by Igbo and minority
Christians and populations without PVCs and disenfranchised. This includes over
one million PVCs not yet produced and delivered to the Commission till date;
with 500,000 of them awarded to a local firm in Abuja. Till date, there
are alarming 32.04 million PVCs in the North as against 24.2 million in the
South; with a shocking difference of over 8 million PVCs between the North and
the South.

The recent public comment of
the INEC Chairman justifying the failure of his Commission to give every
registered voter in Nigeria his or her PVC irrespective of his or her tribe,
sex and religion; using low voters’ percentage in the recent staggered
gubernatorial polls in Ekiti and Osun States as a defense, is most regrettable
and condemnable. The INEC leadership under Prof Attahiru Jega must be reminded
by all and sundry including your respected FEC that in the Presidential
election involving multi ethnic and religious groupings like in Nigeria,
denying a whopping 12.4m registered voters their rights to vote by way of non
issuance of PVCs to them and disallowing them the use of TVCs; is tantamount to
ethnic cleansing and political alienation. It is important to
inform that 12.4m registered voters denied PVCs in Nigeria is more than the
population of a sovereign country. In law, he who asserts must prove! That
is to say that since INEC insisted on using PVCs for the referenced elections,
the Commission must give every citizen registered to vote PVC to enable him or
her participate and vote in the referenced crucial polls or allow those without
PVCs but who have TVCs to vote provided their names are in the Voters’
Register.

In the recent political rally held
by a leading opposition party called “the APC”, in Yobe State aired live by
Channels TV, the APC publicly said that GEJ’s ouster is long concluded and that
this is the first time the opposition party will be ousting the ruling party in
Nigeria. The fundamental import of this magisterial assertion made without
waiting for the balloting outcomes is fundamentally hinged on INEC’s grossly
lopsided distribution of PVCs, which ensured high concentration of PVCs in the
North particularly in the hands of most of Hausa-Fulani registered voters
including millions of underage voters. These referenced registered voters are
popularly believed to have been issued PVCs through themselves and by proxies.
The Prof Jega’s INEC refusal and adamancy in allowing the 12.4 million
registered voters the use of TVCs even when it has no single harm in the outcome
and credibility of the polls; is ethnically and parochially motivated.

Final Solution:

The only way to popularly reverse
INEC’s thick plots to effect majoritarian manipulation of the
presidential poll and ensure multi ethnic and all inclusive general polls on 28th
March 2015 is to compel the Commission to rescind its ethnically biased
decision by insisting on the use of only PVCs and Card Readers for the polls.
Contrary to INEC’s defence, which is infantile and empty; the side by side use
of PVCs and TVCs will never result in any rigging or compromise of the polls.
The incontrovertible truth is that the voters’ register and not the Card Reader
is the fundamental anti rigging mechanism. As a matter of fact, the Voters’
Register is the sine qua non of the 2015 General Polls’ credibility. For
instance, even if a voter / holder of PVC is authenticated by the Card Reader
and his or her name is found missing in the Voters’ Register, he or she cannot
vote. INEC also said severally that the Voters’ Register in its possession and
midwifery is clean and updated, and that all multiple registrants
have been gotten rid of. This has rubbished its argument of disallowing the use
of TVCs on the basis of their proneness to rigging.

Like we earlier said even after the
Card Reader must have authenticated the PVC and its bearer, the bearer must
subject his or her PVC to voters’ register checks to ensure that his or her
name is in the register. In the case of TVC and its bearer, it requires only
voters’ register authentication. In view of these, it has been established that
both PVC and TVC can be used side by side without rigging or compromising the
polls. Besides, the Electoral Act of 2010 has no automatic provisions making it
mandatory for only PVCs to be used in the 2015 polls. During the issuance of
PVCs, it is made mandatory for registered voters to surrender their TVCs before
issued their PVCs. So, the issue of voters bearing PVCs and TVCs at the same is
made impossible.

Therefore, our firm position is that
those registered voters with PVCs and those with TVCs should be allowed to
vote. In doing this, the PVC holders should be subjected to the Card
Reader authentication before finally checked in the Voters’ Register. In the
case of those with TVCs, they should be subjected to Voters’ Register checks
and accredited if their names and photographs are successfully traced to the
Voters’ Register. Any registered voter with PVC or TVC whose name is not in the
Voters’ Register will be made to leave the voting station. In all these, Card
Reader cannot make a registered voter to vote.

Yours Faithfully,

For:
International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law

41,
Miss Elems Street, Fegge, Onitsha, Southeast Nigeria

Emeka
Umeagbalasi, B.Sc. (Hons.) Criminology & Security Studies

Board
Chairman, International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law